


Way Down We Go

by unfolded73



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Introspection, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 00:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7955650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does Killian Jones deserve? Killian flashes back to various points in his life while he's in the Underworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Way Down We Go

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some vague descriptions of torture and other violence. Also while this is definitely a Captain Swan fic overall, the only sex scene in this fic is between Killian and Milah, so if that's not your bag, fair warning. Beta'd by @j-philly-b and wtvoc (@this-too-too-sullied flesh). Inspired by [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2w96SABZXo) by @lavoyageuse21, and titled after the same song by Kaleo, "Way Down We Go", which I listened to on repeat while I was writing.

He wakes suddenly, his own sharp intake of breath the only sound in the endless night that is his prison. Killian doesn’t remember when or how he returned to his cell, doesn’t know how many times Hades has had him brought out for his own cruel amusement. He sleeps or passes out (it’s rarely clear which) when Hades gets bored with torturing him. Death, as it turns out, is even more exhausting than life.

The torture is no less than he deserves, after a too-long life of violence and self-serving acts, of being a boy who wasn’t good enough for his father to keep, a youth who continually let his brother down, who drank and gambled and picked fights. A pirate who murdered and stole. A man finally made whole by Milah’s love, only to get her killed. A man who became nothing but a conduit for revenge. 

There’s so much pain that it’s hard to know what to focus on. There are cuts and bruises too plentiful to catalog, and a rattle when he breathes that hints at some more serious injury inside his chest. Not that it matters; he’s already dead. Presumably his actual body is somewhere above, rotting under the earth in a town he made his home because of the woman he loved.

 _Loves_ , he corrects himself. This body may be an illusion, but it still feels broken, and he may be dead, but he still loves Emma Swan. He loves her, and he is so afraid for her. Afraid because he won’t be there to help her defend her family, and afraid that she will rebuild all the walls he spent so long carefully breaking down.

He imagines her, long blonde hair and red leather jacket, and tries to commit every inch of her to memory, brand his brain with the vision of her. He’s terrified that as his time in the Underworld drags on, he will begin to forget her. That she will become a vague collection of features in his memory and he will lose the whole of her, lose the sound of her voice and the way her palm felt against his cheek. The way her mouth tasted, and the way she gasped when he touched her just the way she liked. 

It seems impossible now, agony lancing through him with every painful hitching breath, that he could have found such happiness after so many years without it. In spite of everything that he is, Emma found him worthy. She shared everything with him: her heart, her body and soul, her love and laughter. It was more than he deserved. He who surrendered to the Darkness without even putting up a fight; if there is anything good about being dead, it’s that he doesn’t have to face Emma after what he let himself become.

~*~

The punch lands square in his stomach, and for a moment Killian feels like he’s dying. 

He isn’t dying, he knows that. Even at thirteen, this is far from the first time he’s had the wind knocked out of him, and it certainly won’t be the last. He staggers back against the brick wall, his foot slipping in the mud and sewage that runs in slow rivulets down the cobblestones of the alley. 

The sound of the boys’ laughter penetrates through the pain as Killian heaves a breath, and he feels a sharp sting of relief that it is getting further away. They lost interest when they realized he had nothing to steal, but not before delivering punishment for that fact with their fists. He wipes at his nose, painting a fresh streak of blood across the top of his hand and wrist. Humiliation coils in his stomach like a living thing, and it is only the filth at his feet that keeps Killian from curling up on the ground. Pushing himself away from the wall, he begins to slowly limp back to the harbor.

He hopes to get to his bunk on the cargo ship to nurse his wounds privately, but Liam has noticed his absence and is looking for him when he comes aboard. Killian hangs his head, unable to meet his brother’s eye. 

“We need to resume our training, Killian,” Liam says, not unkindly, but not bothering to ask who’s responsible for this latest bloody nose and bruised eye socket. “The sooner you learn to hold your own in a fight, the sooner I don’t have to see you dragging yourself back to the ship like this.” Liam is seventeen now, a man grown, but they are almost the same height. Killian sometimes feels like a stranger in his newly stretched out body, so awkward and clumsy. His arms are too thin, not well-muscled like his brother, and it’s one more thing that makes him hate himself.

It is nearly a year later when they are in the same port, loading and unloading cargo as always, and Killian recognizes the boy who once punched him in the gut. When Killian’s fist connects with the boy’s face and the crew cheers him on, he feels like a wild thing, finally free of the tethers that have always held him down. He keeps hitting, every satisfying punch a measure toward paying the world back for whatever gave him this terrible lot in life. No mother, no father, just endless work and no one to care whether he lives or dies except for his brother. He’s on his knees now, knuckles bruised and bloody, and the boy underneath him is motionless. 

A flask of rum is slapped into his hand when he returns to the ship, a congratulations by crewmates who have never given two tosses about him before. But needless violence, that’s something they understand. 

Killian lifts the flask to his lips and drinks, concentrating on the burn of it as he swallows and trying to ignore the shame he feels when he sees the look in Liam’s eyes. 

~*~

“Do you know why you’re such a special guest here, Mr. Jones?” The whip lances his bare back again. Killian flinches and clenches his teeth, saying nothing.

Hades strolls around to where he can look Killian in the eyes. It doesn’t mean the lashing will stop; Hades has henchmen to do the hard labor for him. “It’s because you were a villain, and you redeemed yourself.”

Killian can’t help raising an eyebrow at that. He hopes it looks sardonic. Hades signals with a nod of his head and the lash strikes again.

“And not just a lip-service redemption, either. You genuinely made yourself over into a hero. Sure, some might say it was for the love of a woman…” Hades reaches out and presses a finger to Killian’s forehead. “But you and I both know... that was only the catalyst. Deep down in that head there was a hero waiting to get out.” He presses hard enough to rock Killian’s head back before examining his finger, making a face, and wiping it off on his suit.

“But there’s darkness in you too. Darkness, and rage, and violence; it’s why making you the Dark One was like throwing a man who can’t swim into the deep, deep ocean. You didn’t stand a chance against all that darkness. It called out to the darkness in your heart... like a soulmate.” He signals and the lash falls again. Killian closes his eyes.

“So that’s the crux. That’s why I’m spending so much time on you, peeling away the layers of heroism and villainy like an onion. I can’t wait… to see what happens when you break.”

~*~

Excalibur feels good in his hand. He weighs it, taking a few practice strikes, feeling the slight rocking of the _Jolly Roger_ under his feet. He closes his eyes and breathes in the brackish air, listening to the familiar creaks of his ship, the sound of the ropes and old wood and the subtle flutter of furled sails. Rumplestiltskin will be here soon, unless he's too cowardly to show up. 

Killian’s head is filled with fantasies of death and murder, of ripping the Crocodile’s heart out. Not the kind of magical heart ripping that the denizens of this town are so fond of. No, this is bloody and violent. This is cracking ribs and rending flesh and blood, so much blood. The Crocodile, screaming for mercy as Captain Hook rips a hole in his chest and feasts on his agony. Watches as his life bleeds away, staining the wood of the deck, a stain that will remind him always that the bastard who ruined his life paid dearly for it, in the end.

Inevitably, his thoughts turn to Emma. He shakes his head angrily but he can't banish the image of her, her pain and disappointment at what he's become. 

With a growl of frustration, he jams the sword into its scabbard and teleports himself to the other side of the ship for no other reason than to feel the pounding, relentless power course through his body, distracting him from his thoughts with a pulse of euphoria. No wonder every wielder of magic he's ever known ended up drowning in darkness. 

The sensation of magic coursing through him is better than the weed he used to smoke with Tink during boring, sweltering afternoons in the Neverland jungle. It’s better than the opiates he once carried in his ship’s hold during his pirating days, the powder that fetched more gold than he knew how to spend and left men who used it a thin, wasted version of themselves, craving nothing but more of the drug. Trying it once, Killian had sworn off the stuff forever, never wanting to desire a drug more than he desired vengeance or, for that matter, sex. 

Killian probably should be invested in the outcome of this sword fight, but he can’t find it in himself to care. At this point, his quest for vengeance is more like muscle memory than anything else. Even the idea of the Crocodile getting the upper hand, and Excalibur, and killing him doesn’t make him feel anything. He’s aware of the Dark Ones’ voices chittering inside his head, whispering to him of their greater plan, and he knows that in the long run those voices will control him. In this moment, with the sea in his nostrils, he thinks that perhaps there’s an easy way out, an easy way to wrest control away from the Darkness. Perhaps he can just… give up.

Then Rumplestiltskin appears, and muscle memory takes over. Vengeance drives him on. The Dark Ones whisper. Magic caresses him. Somewhere, Emma cries for him. And Killian Jones wants it all to be over.

~*~

The absence of pain should be a relief, but it’s so foreign to him now. He feels numb, moving around the Underworld version of the Charming’s apartment. Ostensibly, he’s looking for the story book, but he’s having a difficult time concentrating on the task. 

Emma is here to try to save him from death itself. Deep down, he knows that’s not possible. What’s more, he knows a villain like him shouldn’t be saved. That being in the Underworld, being tortured by Hades, is what he deserves. But if Emma is here, then she won’t rest until she gets what she’s come for, and he’s damn well going to help her. 

She is upstairs now, searching the little nook where she used to sleep when she lived with her parents. He wonders suddenly if that's where she's living again, in the world above where he is dead. Or has she kept the house, the one he picked for them to live in together, the house that bore witness to their descent into darkness? He hopes if she did keep it, even with him dead and gone, she can someday fill it with happy memories.

He remembers when he realized that Emma was willing to be in a relationship with him, the blooming hope that he really had won her heart the way he promised he would in a moment of braggadocio. He remembers the first time she held hands with him in front of her family, proof that she wasn't ashamed to be with him, that he was worth more than secretive kisses where no one else could see. He’d been filled with so much happiness and pride, that such a woman could love him. She was made of so much goodness, so much light, and she was his. It had made his head swim.

It was those same feelings about Emma that filled him with pride when he introduced her to Liam. He couldn't hold back the awe in his voice as he told Liam everything she had done for him. He wanted Liam to be impressed that he had won the love of such a woman, even if he didn't deserve her. Even though it never was and never could be possible, for a moment Killian allowed himself to imagine a world in which he had Emma and Liam both, in which he and his brother could be together, surrounded by family: wives and children and grandchildren, so much happiness and love that he would surely drown in it. 

Killian wishes now that he could undo it all, that Emma had never met him. Not because the happiness wasn't worth it, because to taste the sweetness that was Emma’s love for even a moment would have been worth it. But for her sake, if she had never loved him, surely her life would have been better. She wouldn't have given in to the darkness to try to save him. She wouldn't be here now, in the Underworld, trying to resurrect him. He is an anchor weighing her down, and given the chance, he would sacrifice those memories of love and pleasure and happiness in a second if it meant Emma could be free of it.

~*~

He watches her through the gaps in the library bookshelf as she re-shelves books that patrons have returned. Belle hums to herself happily, perhaps thinking of her new husband, her happy marriage. Her marriage built on lies.

“Are you finding what you were looking for, Killian?” she calls out, oblivious to his dark thoughts. Her voice startles him, but it doesn’t make his heart race. It can't, because his heart is in the hands of her cursed husband.

Killian knows he can’t warn her. Gold isn’t actively controlling him now, but there are certain commands that keep him in check even when the Crocodile is distracted by other tasks. Killian could have warned her, once, and that’s a thought that keeps him awake at night. If he had just told Belle that he suspected her dagger was a fake from the start, then none of this would be happening now. But that’s what a hero would have done, and he’s no hero.

“Aye,” he says, pulling a book at random off the shelf.

Gripping the edge of the shelf, with her other arm outstretched, Belle swings around into the aisle where he’s standing, a grin on her face. “I saw you and Emma the other day,” she says cryptically.

“You did?”

“Things seem to be really going well between the two of you.”

They had been, he silently agrees, before he lost his heart and began living under a death sentence. He smiles faintly and doesn’t respond.

“I’m glad,” Belle says. “You make a good couple.”

Killian can’t help but laugh at that, a short, mirthless bark. “Right, because on the one hand you have the Savior, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, princess, mother, wielder of light magic, and on the other hand you have a centuries-old, revenge-obsessed, one-handed pirate. A villain.”

Belle frowns at him. “You think of yourself as a villain? Even now?”

“I think that darkness is never far away for people like me.” 

Belle takes a step back from him, and he’s glad to see the flash of fear in her eyes. He hopes it’s because she draws the obvious line between ‘people like me’ to ‘people like Rumplestiltskin’. But then she shakes her head, resolute. “You talk about being a villain like it’s an immutable fact about you, but I don’t believe that’s true.”

“I literally shot you once.”

“You were blinded by vengeance then. Now you’ve found something else to live for. You know what they say about love: it’s the most powerful magic that exists.”

Killian squints at her. “You believe that?”

“I have to. If I didn’t…” She shrugs, leaving the rest unsaid.

His jaw clenches, and he can feel it twitching. He wonders if Belle can see it. _Don’t believe it_ , he wants to scream. _Don’t trust your husband. Test the dagger. Find him out. Save me._ He can’t say anything. 

“I can tell that Emma’s happy, Killian, and I bet you’re a lot of the reason why. She’s got that look about her, of a woman in love.”

He can’t help it, a part of him hopes Belle is right, which is insanely selfish, given that he won’t live long enough to see their romance through. Maybe for Emma’s sake, that’s for the best. But he feels hope bloom in that numb cavity in his chest nonetheless.

“I’ve loved her for so long,” he confesses suddenly. “I didn’t let myself hope that she would ever…”

Belle puts a hand on his shoulder. “You need to let yourself be happy, Killian. Stop carrying around… whatever it is that you’re still carrying around.”

Tears prickle behind his eyes, both at Belle’s kindness and because he knows happiness isn’t in the cards for him. 

“If something happens to me,” he says, and then swallows around a lump in his throat, unable to go on. _When your husband crushes my heart_ , he thinks.

“Why would something happen to you?”

He shrugs. “You know, Storybrooke. If something happens to me…” _What? Tell Emma I love her? Tell Henry I'm sorry?_ What could he ask of Belle? “Feel free to let yourself into my room at Granny’s to retrieve any library books I've neglected to return.”

Belle laughs. “Okay, Killian. I'll be sure to do that.” She pats him on the shoulder and returns to her task, humming to herself once more.

~*~

Eventually, the elevator returns to the bottom of the shaft, its clatter shaking him out of his stupor. It is empty.

He can sense that Emma has returned through the portal and isn't in the Underworld any longer. She's more distant somehow, but if he had to articulate how he knows that, he couldn't. A part of him breathes a sigh of relief that she has safely escaped the land of the dead, she and her family, but another part of him feels the loss of her like a hole in his chest. Having his heart ripped out by Rumpelstiltskin has nothing on the ache he feels now. He closes his eyes and makes a wish, or a prayer, he isn't sure which, that she will move on from him and find the happiness in life that he wasn't able to give her.

True love. And isn't it just typical of his life, the endless ironic joke that is his too-long life and too-long death, that he should discover that their love is true mere moments before they have to say goodbye to each other forever? He tries to laugh, but it comes choking out of his raw throat like a sob. 

He drags himself into the elevator, suddenly so bone-tired that he feels like he could just lie down and sleep for a thousand years. If he hadn't made a promise to Emma, perhaps he would try it. But he told her he would cross over, and so cross over he will. Even so, he can’t help feeling like moving on is giving up, that it’s the easy way out. 

As it turns out, the question is moot. The universe isn't finished fucking with him yet. 

He ends up in the Blind Witch’s, stirring sugar into a cup of coffee and stewing over the fact that he's even failed at doing the one thing Emma made him promise to do. The path to cross over remained resolutely closed to him. Something is keeping him here, some unfinished business is stopping him from leaving, and he is terrified that Hades is the reason. Or perhaps he will have to spend the next fifty years here, doing some menial job day in and day out, waiting for the day that Emma dies and joins him. He supposes that is preferable to the alternative: Emma dying prematurely. 

The door to the diner opens and a man in armor rushes in. Killian narrows his eyes, watching King Arthur carefully. Perhaps his unfinished business isn't to wait for Emma to die. Maybe his unfinished business is to keep Storybrooke safe so that Emma can live. 

~*~

Killian is furious.

He made her promise to stay below deck if it ever came to this, and it was always going to come to this. His fearsome reputation aside, rival pirates are occasionally lured by the possibility that if they can best him and his crew, the _Jolly Roger_ can be theirs. They never win, and today will be no different, except for one very critical thing.

Across the deck of the ship, he catches sight of Milah with a dagger gripped in her hand, defending the ship along with the rest of the crew. He wants to scream at her to get below, because how dare she put herself in harm’s way like this, but he has to concentrate on his own opponent’s sword lest he be run through. The captain of the _Misthaven’s Revenge_ isn’t much of a swordsman, fortunately; Killian leaves him choking on his own blood as he rushes through the fray, searching for Milah. He shoves the men in his way aside, catching another enemy cutlass with his own and the man’s chin with a sharp crack from his elbow, sending the assailant overboard.

Everything from that point forward happens in slow motion, like a series of pictures flashing one at a time in front of his eyes as he struggles to get to her. A pirate advancing on Milah, hands reaching out to grab her. Milah holding the dagger out in front of her, not yielding ground. The laughing face of a man who doesn’t consider her a threat. His filthy, meaty fingers closing around Milah’s throat. Her arm jerking as she buries the dagger in the pirate’s stomach. Blood gushing out over Milah’s hand. Her shocked face as the man falls to the deck, his guts spilling out onto the wood.

It transpires over mere seconds, and by the time Killian is at Milah’s side, it’s all over. The other invading pirates are equally outmatched, and are either fleeing or dead. The dagger falls from her hands and she staggers away.

He finds Milah later in their quarters, washing the blood from her shirt in a basin. She tries to pretend she hasn’t been crying.

“I didn’t want this for you,” he says helplessly. “Taking a life, it changes you.”

“I’m fine, Killian,” she says, but her voice is raspy and strange-sounding. “It was that or be killed myself. This is my home too, you can’t expect me not to defend it.”

He stares at the wall, afraid to meet Milah’s eyes. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he whispers, “Aye.”

“I just…” She continues to scrub the shirt, the water pink and soapy. “I didn’t know it would feel this way.”

Killian goes to put his arms around her, and when she shoves him he isn’t really surprised. “You’re angry with me,” he says. He’s made her into a killer, and the shame of it burns in his stomach. 

“No.” 

“Then why—”

“I don’t know.” She pulls him in for a kiss then, her teeth raking over his lower lip and biting down. 

“Milah—”

“Don’t talk. Please, Killian, just _don’t talk_.”

Moments later he’s sitting on the bed, his pants unlaced and Milah writhing in his lap, grinding herself against him. He wants to tell her how beautiful she is, and how brave and strong, but he keeps silent, mouthing against her breast through her thin chemise instead. He can feel the wet slide of her against his cock, and even though sex had been the furthest thing from his mind when he first walked in the room, he’s fully hard in no time at all. Milah fumbles for his cock with her hand, angling him and sinking down. They fuck silently, Milah rocking in his lap, her eyes squeezed shut, while he braces himself on the bed with one hand and thrusts up with his hips. The ends of her long hair tickle his other hand as it searches for purchase on her back, her hip, the full swell of her ass. She’s so hot and wet and _alive_ , and Killian almost sobs with how good she is and how good she feels on him and he wants her, always, wants her, needs her—

Killian comes with a shout; it takes him without warning and he keeps thrusting through it, working his hand between them and pressing hard against her clit the way she sometimes needs, the way she taught him. Milah makes a desperate sound, muttering “almost, almost.” The noise she makes is pure relief when she finally comes too.

Heartbeat slowing from its breakneck pace, all Killian can do is clutch her to him, hold her as close as he possibly can. If he could keep her this close and not let her go, then he’ll never have to watch her life slip away on the deck of his ship as so many did today. It occurs to him for the first time how much of love is fear.

~*~

It’s almost too comfortable, this bed.

He’s slept on dirty floors, in cramped barracks, in bedrolls laid out on the hard ground, next to bilge pumps and sweaty sailors, in hammocks and whorehouses. Even his mattress on the _Jolly Roger_ , the nicest bed on his ship by far, is thin and hard. 

This bed is enormous, for one thing. He can stretch out across it in any direction and his feet won’t hang off the end. The mattress has the right amount of give, so that he can sink into it without feeling smothered by it. The cotton sheets are expensive — smooth and soft against his bare skin. The fluffy duvet (comforter, she calls it) has weight without being too hot to be underneath.

He rolls over and looks at Emma, her soft blonde hair catching the early morning sunlight. She’s sleeping peacefully. No nightmares, just her face free of worry and her soft sleep-breathing. Her presence adds to the overwhelming sensation of comfort that a part of him feels like he can’t possibly deserve. But she tells him he does, every day she tells him, and maybe he’s starting to believe it, a little.

It’s hard to resist moving closer to her and nuzzling against her, breathing her in, and so he doesn’t, even though it disturbs her rest.

“Mmm,” she murmurs as his lips press against her neck. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“No, I slept wonderfully. Just wanted to hold you.”

Emma turns away from him, molding herself against his chest and bending her knees so that he can spoon up behind her. She takes his hand and brings it around, holding it against her chest with their fingers threaded together. “Everything okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

Emma shrugs one shoulder. “I can tell when your thoughts are whirring around in your head.”

“You haven’t even opened your eyes, love.”

“Doesn’t matter, I can tell,” she says. He can hear the smile in her voice.

“I was just… remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

Blowing out a breath, he laughs a little. “There’s no short answer to that.”

Emma lets go of his hand then and rolls over, reaching up to stroke his cheek as she searches his eyes for something, waiting for him to say more. Not pressuring, not pushing, just waiting.

Killian lets out a sigh. “I’m wondering if I’ll ever stop being afraid that I’m not good enough for this life. For you.”

Their days are filled with her little reassurances on that score, both implicit and explicit, so she doesn’t reassure him now. She simply says, “I hope so,” and wraps her arms around him, pulling him close for a hug. The touch of her body along the length of his is so intimate, and even though it isn’t sexual at the moment, he feels a surge of pleasure at the sensation of her skin against his. He squeezes her tighter, enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest and the way their legs tangle together. 

“I’ve been alive a long, long time,” he sighs after a while, interrupting the quiet.

“Not lately you haven’t,” she says with a soft laugh, “but I assume you mean in total.”

“Yes, love, that’s what I mean.” He brushes his fingers up her side, tickling her and making her squirm.

“Too long?”

“No.” He kisses her gently, closing his lips around her lower one. “Not until I’ve grown old with you.”

She gasps. Even with the knowledge of their love being true, they are still tip-toeing around discussions of the future. But she doesn’t look away the way she might have once, she meets his eyes as a faint blush stains her cheeks.

“I’m on board with that plan,” she finally says, and he smiles.

“Good.”


End file.
